3200 Phaethon has a strange orbit. Sometimes it is far from the Sun, out past Mars, in the main asteroid belt. Other times it gets very close to the Sun, inside of the orbit of Mercury. This picture shows how Earth crosses 3200 Phaethon's orbit in December. That is when we can see the Geminid meteor shower. Original Windows to the Universe artwork by Randy Russell using orbital information from NASA/JPL.